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An international team of researchers has provided valuable insights into the brain’s noradrenaline (NA) system, which has been a longtime target for medications to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, and anxiety.

Equally important beyond the findings is the groundbreaking methodology that the researchers developed to record real-time chemical activity from standard clinical electrodes which are routinely implanted for epilepsy monitoring.

Published online in the journal Current Biology on Monday (Oct. 23), the research not only provides new insights into the brain’s chemistry, which could have implications for a wide array of medical conditions, it also highlights a remarkable new capacity to acquire data from the living human brain.

During the company’s second quarter earnings call in July, Musk had said that combining the two could provide a cyber body that is incredibly capable.

Compact genetic testing device created for Covid-19 could be used to detect a range of pathogens, or conditions including cancer.

A virus diagnosis device that gives lab-quality results within just three minutes has been invented by engineers at the University of Bath, who describe it as the ‘world’s fastest Covid test’

The prototype LoCKAmp device uses innovative ‘lab on a chip’ technology and has been proven to provide rapid and low-cost detection of Covid-19 from nasal swabs. The research team, based at the University of Bath, say the technology could easily be adapted to detect other pathogens such as bacteria — or even conditions like cancer.

They reveal the origin of wine, the age of bones and fossils, and they serve as diagnostic tools in medicine. Isotopes and isotopologues—molecules that differ only in the composition of their isotopes—also play an increasingly important role in astronomy. For example, the ratio of carbon-12 (12C) to carbon-13 (13C) isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet allows scientists to infer the distance at which the exoplanet orbits its central star.

Until now, 12C and 13C bound in carbon monoxide were the only isotopologues that could be measured in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. Now a team of researchers has succeeded in detecting ammonia isotopologues in the atmosphere of a cold brown dwarf.

As the team has just reported in the journal Nature, ammonia could be measured in the form of 14NH3 and 15NH3. Astrophysicists Polychronis Patapis and Adrian Glauser, who are members of the Department of Physics as well as of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS, were involved in the study—Patapis as one of the first authors.

There were mixed reactions across gene editing space on Thursday after CRISPR Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CRSP) and Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: VRTX), in a world’s first, won U.K. approval for their CRISPR-based drug exa-cel for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.

CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) has added ~5%, and MaxCyte (NASDAQ: MXCT), which has a licensing deal with the Swiss biotech, has gained ~4%. Vertex Pharma (VRTX) is trading lower for the third straight session.

Other CRSPR-based drug developers Graphite Bio (GRPH) and Precision BioSciences (DTIL) are also among the gainers, while notable gene editing biotechs Editas Medicine (EDIT), Beam Therapeutics (BEAM), Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA), and Verve Therapeutics (VRTX) are in the red.

Major work led by Dr. André Veillette’s team at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), in collaboration with a group of researchers, and just published in Nature Immunology, managed to identify a previously unknown molecular action that prevents phagocytosis, which is a process that promotes the immune system’s response to cancer. A Research Briefing on the work done by the team has been published in the same journal.

Macrophages are cells of the immune system. One of the roles of macrophages is to engulf, or “eat,” cells that are defective or dangerous, including cancer cells. This process is named phagocytosis. Macrophages can be called into action to eliminate cancer cells. However, this capacity is often defective, because macrophages are put in a state of dormancy by the cancer cells.

This is in part because a particular molecule called CD47 is often over-abundant on cancer cells. CD47 prevents phagocytosis by triggering a molecule or “receptor” on macrophages named SIRPα. Agents that block the ability of CD47 to trigger SIRPα have shown promising results for treating cancer.

The researchers used human stem cells to create a model of early brain development — organoids.

Super-resolution image of human stem cell-derived Microglia cells with labeled mitochondria (yellow), nucleus (magenta), and actin filaments (cyan). These Microglia cells help in the maturation of neurons in human brain organoid models. Photo credit: A*STAR’s SIgN

An international team of scientists has uncovered the vital role of microglia, the immune cells in the brain that acts as its dedicated defense team, in early human brain development.

Continue reading “New study reveals the critical role of microglia in human brain development” »

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s medicines regulator has authorized the world’s first gene therapy treatment for sickle cell disease, in a move that could offer relief to thousands of people with the crippling disease in the U.K. In a statement Thursday, the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency said it approved Casgevy, the first medicine licensed using the gene editing tool CRISPR, which won its makers a Nobel prize in 2020. The agency approved…

In a world first, regulators in the U.K. approved Crispr’s gene-editing treatment for two blood diseases on Thursday, and CRSP stock surged.